| Categories | Women's magazine |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Weekly |
| Founder | Milada Horáková |
| Founded | 1947 |
| Country | The Czech Republic |
| Based in | Prague |
| Language | Czech |
| Website | Vlasta |
Vlasta is a weekly women's magazine which has been in circulation since 1947. The magazine is headquartered in Prague, the Czech Republic. Its title is a reference to a female warrior from an Old Czech legend. [1] It was the most popular publication of the Communist era in the country. [2] [3]
History and profile
Vlasta was established by Milada Horáková in 1947. [1] [4] Its establishment was supported by the Council of Czech Women which was a commission of experts. [5] The cover of its first issue featured Edvard Beneš and his wife Hana Beneš. [1] The magazine was started as a biweekly publication. [2] It is published on a weekly basis. [6]
During the Communist period Vlasta was under the state control via the Czechoslovak Women's Union (CSWU). [6] The CSWU was also its publisher. [7] From the late 1960s it became relatively less dependent on the CSWU. [6] During this period it covered articles on feminism, but this phase ended in 1969 when the magazine was subject to strict censorship. [8] Vlasta reinforced the goals of the state in regard to the increase of the birth rate and diminishing the women's burden of formal labor and domestic work. [6] In line with the former the magazine published anti-abortion articles in the 1950s and 1960s. [3] It published the memos of the CSWU functioning as its spokesman. [6] [9]
Vlasta sold 630,000 copies in 1967. [2] The magazine had the second highest circulation in 1968 after the Rudé právo newspaper. [6] As a result, its page number was increased from 16 to 32 in February 1968. [6] The magazine enjoyed higher levels of circulation until 1989. [6] Then it began to be published by a private company. [6]
As of 2006 Vlasta was described as a conservative women's magazine focusing on topics related to the roles of women's as a mother and a spouse. [4]
References
- ^ a b c "O časopisu Vlasta". Vlasta (in Czech). Retrieved 3 April 2024.
- ^ a b c Denisa Nečasová (2021). ""I couldn't live without my factory now." The recruitment of women into the workforce in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1950s". UR Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. 2 (19): 146. doi: 10.15584/johass.2021.2.8.
- ^ a b Radka Dudová; Hana Hašková (2023). "Obedient mothers, healthy children: communication on the risks of reproduction in state-socialist Czechoslovakia". Medical Humanities. 49 (2): 227–228. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2022-012498. PMID 36810308.
- ^ a b Jane Tune (2006). An investigation into the portrayal by the magazine Vlasta of the roles of Czech women within the public and private spheres, 1989-2000 (MA(R) thesis). Kingston University.
- ^ Sharon L. Wolchik (1981). "Elite Strategy Toward Women in Czechoslovakia: Liberation or Mobilization?". Studies in Comparative Communism. 14 (2/3): 128. JSTOR 45367402.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Julia Mead; Kristen Ghodsee (2017). "Debating Gender in State Socialist Women's Magazines: The Cases of Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia". History of Communism in Europe. 8: 18–19. doi: 10.5840/hce201782.
- ^ Alena Heitlinger (1979). Women and State Socialism. Sex inequality in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 68. doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-04567-9. ISBN 978-1-349-04567-9.
- ^ Jacqui True (2005). "Book review". Czech Sociological Review. 41 (6): 1122. JSTOR 41132247.
- ^ Michaela Appeltova (2019). Did the Body Have a Cold War? Gendered Bodies and Embodied Experiences in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia (Ph.D. thesis). University of Chicago. p. 49.